II. On Land: Abuses at Human-Trafficking Camps and Houses in Thailand and Malaysia
56
He was eventually taken to a local Muslim community. The two others were taken to the Hat Yai
hospital and died.
“Yusuf,” 19, described the onset of paralysis, saying: “After three months in the camp, my legs
started to hurt. At first, I couldn’t eat food. I didn’t feel hungry, and if I ate, I’d vomit. Gradually, my
legs became affected.”197
Foyas, 20, reported experiencing problems after being released from the human-trafficking camp
in 2014. He told Fortify Rights: “After I was released, there were many problems. [The traffickers]
took me in a car to Malaysia. After I left from the camp, I was unable to walk.”198
“Noor Begum,” 20, told Fortify Rights of seeing captives paralyzed in the human-trafficking camp
where traffickers held her for two months. She said:
I lived in the mountain camp for two months. People who paid earlier were released earlier.
People who couldn’t pay stayed longer and faced many problems and some died . . . The dallals
beat them [captives who could not provide payments] and provided [them with] very little
food, and they were unable to walk. Some were paralyzed and swollen, and then they died.199
“Rayna,” a 19-year-old Rohingya woman from Maungdaw Township, Myanmar, who survived a
human-trafficking camp in 2014, told Fortify Rights: “I did see some people in the jungle areas that
were being held by other dallals, who had been waiting for a long time and couldn’t pay the money.
They were sick and couldn’t walk.”200
“Mohammed Kasem,” 26, told Fortify Rights: “When we arrived [at the human-trafficking camp],
I saw eight to ten Rohingya people who were very sick. Most of them had swollen legs and couldn’t
stand. There were two Shan people who were in charge there.”201
FORCED MARRIAGES AND DOMESTIC SERVITUDE OF
WOMEN AND GIRLS
“Some women are sold to men as wives from the camp.”
–Mid-level human trafficker, Selangor State, Malaysia, September 27, 2014
Members of a transnational criminal syndicate trafficked Rohingya women and girls from
Myanmar and Bangladesh to Malaysia via Thailand and into forced marriages and domestic
servitude. Fortify Rights interviewed Rohingya women and girls sold into forced marriages, men
who purchased women and girls, and eyewitnesses to the trafficking of Rohingya women and
girls. Fortify Rights also obtained recorded phone calls of human traffickers negotiating the sale of
Rohingya women and girl with potential buyers.
Many unmarried women and girls held in captivity by human traffickers contacted family members,
who, in turn, contacted potential husbands to pay for the release of the woman or girl. In other
cases, traffickers directly arranged for the sale of women and girls into marriages or situations of
domestic servitude. In all situations, trafficked women and girls generally lack agency and were
forcibly transported from one abusive situation into another.
197 Fortify Rights interview with #05, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 10, 2014.
198 Fortify Rights interview with #19, Pahang State, Malaysia, August 13, 2014.
199 Fortify Rights interview with #18, Pahang State, Malaysia, August 13, 2014. See also, Fortify Rights interview with #20,
Pahang State, Malaysia, August 14, 2014.
200 Fortify Rights interview with #84, Penang State, Malaysia, September 16, 2014.
201 Fortify Rights interview with #54, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 27, 2014.